Friday, January 31, 2014

healthy life - banana-less bread

If you've been visiting this humble space for a while you might remember when I posted back here about my banana allergy and the unfortunate circumstance of not being able to indulge in the delicious (I assume, from the divine aroma it emits)treat, Banana Bread.

For so long I've searched for an appropriate substitution for the fruit, knowing full well that I may never be able to replicate its smooth texture and subtly sweet offerings. Avocado worked well for smoothies but I was unsure of how it would hold up being baked.
So yesterday afternoon, as the wind whipped around our house and the mercury dropped unnaturally low for January in Queensland, I popped on an apron and set out to bake a sweet loaf. After a few minutes on our trusty mate Google, I discovered just what I was looking for - apple purée! Now why hadn't I thought of that?
I then clicked over to one of my favourite foodie havens, to find inspiration in their Spelt Banana Bread recipe, tweaking it a little to serve my messed-up body's crazy aversion to the yellow fruit.
I swapped the unrefined cane sugar for a 50/50 mix of dark brown sugar and raw caster sugar, the butter for coconut oil, golden syrup for agave syrup, and of course the bananas for apple purée. (I also added a couple dark chocolate pieces to satisfy my pms monster. A girls gotta satisfy that choc craving somehow!)
Simply mix the wet into the dry, pour into a loaf tin and bake for an hour.

Although I'm sure it doesn't have the typical banana bread flavours, it surely looks and feels like the moist, dense and subtly sweet loaf of my dreams. I am quite pleased with myself.
What I am not pleased with however, is the mistake I made of falling asleep, sitting up nonetheless, before I could turn my glorious creation out and put it safely away. I shouldn't have been surprised to find it half eaten by two naughty little felines.
All is well though, that tiny smidge on the end up there was rescued for breakfast this morning, served alongside home-made natural yoghurt with a drizzle of agave syrup and two piping hot espresso. Alls well that ends well, right?

boy oh boy did they enjoy themselves!

Do you have any tips or ideas for subsituting banana? I'd love to know!